


Hope

by chefke



Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark, Eventual Smut, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 00:05:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17436071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chefke/pseuds/chefke
Summary: After the Justice War, the world crumbles into chaos. Death and terror are rampant and children become the front line for a battle not yet finished. Through all the loss and tragedy one thing remains very clear, not everything is as it seems.





	1. The Supply Compound

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be clear this is a very very dark story. As such, I will *not* be cross-posting this to FFN. I tried to have the entire story written before I started posting so I could have some sort of posting schedule but with four other stories that I am working on at the moment, this is on the backburner. I did want to post the first chapter to see if there was an interest and if it was something I should put more of a focus on. Please let me know what you think and if you think it is too dark or any other comments in general.
> 
> Also, there will be a lot of surprises and twists and turns in this turns. I don't want to spoil things so I will be updating the tags as mysteries unfold. When the story is completed it should have the proper set of tags. I know it's annoying but I hate reading tags and then finding out the plot twist because it was in the tags.
> 
> Thank you! C

**Hope**

* * *

 

Hope hurried through the darkened streets, her long black tresses tied up in a tight bun on her head. Tonight, was about stealth. If she could make it past the nightguard on the Northside this time, she could get to the food and medicine supply. She could...

 

A subtle whooshing sound impossible to be heard by human ears turned up several dead leaves and she quickened her pace. Not that there were any trees down in the sub-levels, where the poor lived. All the rich and upper-middle class lived above ground while everyone else lived in the old subway tunnels that were heavily patrolled by law enforcement.

  
The rich had taken everything nice above ground with them. They had even taken the pipes for the water once they found out that the 'undergrounders' were stealing it. Most punishments were capital underground and surviving every day was a monumental achievement, especially in the winter or during food shortages.

  
Freshwater, food, and medical supplies could only be achieved by going to the Supply Compound. It was a warehouse in the center of the underground that was run by the infamous Emperor Lex Luthor and his infallible sidekick in tights. Everyone who worked in the underground was given a small ticket for their work each day and they were able to trade their ticket for rations.

  
The rations were usually small loaves of bread, no larger than a child's palm and two gulps of water for a half a day’s work. A half a day's work was usually a grueling twelve-hour shift that was not achievable by the old or the disabled. The actual work was factory based that provided the aboveground with entertainment. They built music boxes, cinema screens, odds and ends for kitchens, and even a printing press.

  
There were no doctors so when someone got sick they died. Enough people from the surface had come down to the underground either because they were accused of a crime or because they actually committed one. Due to the fear of being sentenced to the underground, there was virtually no crime on the surface. When Hope was small she wondered what it was like to go to sleep and not worry if you were going to wake up.

Who was the reason for all of their unending misery? Lex Luthor or more accurately, Emperor Luthor of the Luthoran Empire. Shortly after Hope was born, there had been a war. Some said it was called the Justice War but no one really knew for sure, with the help of his caped minion Lex Luthor took a hold of one half of whatever their country had once been. No one really knew much about what happened to the other half. Information like that was forbidden aboveground and therefore scarce and mythical underground.

  
Remy said that the new kid from the surface, Zan knew a bit about the Justice War and what actually happened. Hope wasn’t holding her breath though, people would say anything for the prospect of food.

  
It wasn’t that she hated people, she just didn’t trust them. She had learned that the hard way growing up. Her body had been abused before it even understood what the abuse meant and she had starved. Starved and never understood kindness until she met Remy. It was only because of Remy that she managed to get off of the more dangerous streets, in the first place. He was the only person she trusted in her life, the only person she trusted with her life.

  
Hope often wished she could hate all the people around her. It would make her life easier. She could steal tickets from workers or guards rather than sneak into the Supply Compound every other night before getting dragged back to her cell. It was just so hard to hate people that were in the same situation as you.

  
Did it suck? Yeah. Was there anything she could do about it? No.

  
She did possess the ability to hate though. If there was anyone she hated it was Lex Luthor and his ever-present sidekick. If she ever had to pick one of the two to rid the land of the living and suffering of, she would pick his sidekick without a thought. He could easily overpower the baldheaded brute, but he didn’t. Instead, he was his lackey and had literally set up their world of suffering and death. He was one of the main reasons no one escaped the Luthoran Empire. He was despicable.

  
Sticking her head out from behind a disposal receptacle, Hope watched the guards move to change shifts. There were at least thirty patrolling the perimeter. Tonight must be a slow night, that or he was here. Hope knew he was, he came every other night to coincide when she broke in and stole food for Remy and the kids Remy took in.

Sometimes she got caught, sometimes she didn’t. The kids were all orphans like she and Remy and the two took care of the kids that would end up in the Chopper otherwise.  
She sped past the vigilant guards and into the dark warehouse. Her black clunky boots, a gift from Remy, splashed in puddles as she rushed between the aisles. The guards were ever moving, but she knew their patrol routes better than they did. The guards wore black leather to blend in with the darkness and helmets with green night vision on them, to help them see.

  
The only thing of notable color on them was their red shocker sticks on their belts. A shock from a ‘death stick’ was a one way trip to the Chopper, not for Hope though. Hope had been shocked multiple times and while it hurt more than death, it still hadn’t killed her yet. Remy said it was likely because of her metagene. She knew otherwise.

  
Flinging herself on top of the fridges, she darted over the chilly meat section casting a glance at the heartbeats of the ever-moving guards. She never took anything that was made out of the Chopper. When she and Remy were eleven, they found out what happened to dead bodies in the underground. The two were so disgusted, they threw up their precious morsels of food. Humans, or what was left of them, was what passed as protein down in the underground.

 

Hope refocused her efforts, she had to come in through the east section tonight and while she knew the north and west sections in her sleep, she wasn’t as familiar with the east and had never been in the south. The east section was dedicated to meats or things that came out of the Chopper and the South was farmed items like eggs, milk, cheese and such.

  
The south and east sections were more heavily guarded than the rest. It was no matter though, Hope was deathly allergic to eggs and she and Remy refused to have anything to do with anything from the east section.

  
Her entrance through the east was a last-ditch effort after an overly aggressive guard had been placed in her usual west entrance. Mustache Guard was a large man with an orange mustache and little freckles all over his body. He started changing the codes hourly. It was generally changed once a week because of consistent thefts and upper management was constantly hiring new staff in an attempt to solve the ‘riff-raff’ problem.  
Mustache guard was apparently the solution. He was a problem though, just another hurdle in Hope’s everyday life. She couldn’t afford to give up or take a day off because her job got a little harder. If she did, the kids would starve and given how little food she was able to give them they’d likely die within a couple of days.

  
It was a lot of stress for a teenager but Hope could handle it. At least she thought she was a teenager anyway, Remy had found her when she was about ten running from an aggressive vagrant that liked to eat his victims after sticking it to them. The two became friends and hadn’t left each other's side until the Metagene culling.

  
Three years later, the Luthorans gassed the entire underground and tested everyone for the metagene while they were out. She was violently woken up when a needle was pressed into her elbow. She vaguely remembered being torn out of Remy’s arms and being dragged into a dimly lit cell while she fought tooth and nail.

  
At the time she thought she was being tossed into the Chopper. So had Remy. An announcement to the entire complex later confirmed that anyone who possessed the dangerous gene was moved to the cell block and had to live there. There were restrictions on meta’s that there weren’t on any of the other citizens. There was a curfew where they were confined within their cells for the night and random periods of time, extra rationing for food, and they were followed by the man in the cape. Most of the meta’s fell in line. The cells may lock at night but it was still a home of sorts and a safe place to sleep at night. Most people in the underground, particularly vagrants, thought she ought to have been grateful.

  
It was easy to spot a meta, they all had a tattoo on the inside of their wrists to their elbows. They varied in color based on how dangerous they were, the lighter the color the less dangerous they were. The actual tattoo was a barcode that any passing guard could hold them down and scan. If they violated an order they were sent immediately to the Lab.

 

A lot of guards in the factories used it to their advantage, raping and attacking simply because the metas were terrified of the Lab.  
The Lab was a place of nightmares. It was another wonderful bonus for being Meta, they were an exception to the Chopper rule. If a meta fell out of line, they were subjected to a psychopathic, named Doctor Strange. He ran the Lab and essentially experimented on anyone with the metagene until they died. No one ever lived longer than a month in the Lab.

  
Hope while being a thief and a nuisance to the good Luthoran Empire, was never sent to Dr. Strange’s Lab or arrested. Her tattooed barcode was black and there was only one person who could ever catch her. He had never turned her in and she knew he never would.

  
She slid down the railing on the side of the fridges and darted into the west section. She could practically see Mustache guard shining in the night. Lining her pockets with as many bread and water rations she could fit, she climbed back up the shelving unit and slid her fingers through the grates of the overhead walkways. Holding the lower half of her body up, she swung underneath the overhead walkways that happened to be filled with patrolling guards. They were looking down, but not underneath their feet for which she was thankful. She wondered if they’d shock her fingers through the grates if they saw her and if the rations would fall loose after falling over a hundred feet.  
She hurried along, grateful that no guard looked down. Tonight she was going into the North section. It was the hardest section to get into and the hardest to get out of. Their smallest kid had taken the Flu and wasn’t getting better. It was a rarity that Hope ever had to go into the North section and she knew that Remy was probably up pacing back and forth in worry despite the late hour.  
There were no doctors in the underground but there were drugs and basic medicines that were only available for guards and their families that lived underground. The guards lived on the actual tracks and in abandoned train cars. It was passed as fancy living in the underground.

  
The north section was only open to the guards and their families. The idea that someone purposely started a family in the underground was so foreign to Hope, she couldn’t wrap her head around it. Whenever she thought of her own faceless mother she wondered why someone would bring a child into this world? Why would they put someone through this much suffering and death?  
The answer was pretty simple because they didn’t care. Hope had lived on the streets for as long as she could remember. It wasn’t always her choice what happened to her body but it was her choice whether or not she would keep the child in her. Her choice was always no.

  
She never had to make the choice with Remy and she wondered if her battered body no longer had the capacity to hold a child. When she asked Remy about it, he held her and cried. She thought that maybe deep down she would be okay, she would be okay holding onto a child if it was Remys and hers to share. They already had eleven orphans that they were raising together. They could raise a child from infancy as well, couldn’t they?

 

A whooshing noise brought her focus back. Shit. He was early. Abandoning all stealth, she dropped from the walkway and onto a tall cabinet. She slipped off the cabinet and into a roll in the aisle. She ran down the aisle, she was so close.

  
She could hear him hovering.

  
Shit. Shit. She had been distracted and hadn’t been listening for him. Shit. She wasn’t going to make it. Rounding the corner, she reached out her fingers for the clear cylinder tube. If she didn’t get the tube Guy would die. Little Guy, he was so small and he could barely breathe on his own. Her fingers closed around the tube just as strong arms yanked her back.

  
The cylinder crashed to the floor, its contents spilling over the cracked black linoleum. She struggled in his arms even though she knew it was no use. He wasn’t just older and larger than her, he could fly.

  
They were evenly matched in several of his abilities but she couldn’t fly. He knew this and took off as soon as she began struggling in his arms. He knew she was terrified of heights and the fear of dropping to her death usually ceased her into inaction.

  
Not today though. She needed that cylinder. Using her elbow she knocked him under his armpit, shocking him mid-ascent and dropping her. She scrambled onto the floor and ran for the dispensary. She could hear guards thundering towards her, each of their heartbeats so different from each other. She could make out mustache guy, four-fingered Mike, Ear licking Sam, and Cannibal Carl.  
Her fingers were a moments breath away from the shelving when she was thrown backward with such force the air was knocked out of her lungs. A feat if there ever was one. She could hear the guards cheering and chanting for the caped lackey. She struggled to her feet and made for the dispensary again. Guy, she had to save little Guy.

  
Her fingers were wrenched up and she was dragged into the air by her wrist. They climbed too quickly and she looked down and screamed out in fear. He caught her immediately in her arms apologizing like he always did. She struggled like she always did, but he locked his arms so she could barely move.

  
She snarled and spit, not caring that she was hurting herself more than she was hurting him. Guy, she had to save little Guy. He ignored her struggles, she was exhausting herself and he knew it. She wouldn’t be able to get back out of her cell tonight and without medicine, Guy would not make the next night.

  
He descended through the roofless center of the Meta living center. She was on the topmost floor. She had been moved up there shortly after he started dragged her back at least three times a week.

  
He arrived at her cell, the door already opened for her. He ignored the Cadmi that were hunkering up and down the halls, their half human and half machine hunched over forms adding to their already miserable existence.

  
Closing the door behind him, he tenderly set her down on what was left of the metal frame of her bed. She sat up and tried to push past him but he pushed her back down with one hand. She fought back immediately from under his hand. Sighing, he spoke up for the first time that week.

  
“Enough, you need to settle down in your room. You don’t want to call unnecessary attention to yourself. You’ve been completely out of hand this week.” Room?! She looked at the cell door past his shoulder and laughed hoarsely. It was a cell plain and simple. A cell, she’d be locked in like the other metas if she hadn’t figured out how to break out after being locked in nightly for almost a year.  
She threw his hand off of her roughly. “Why don’t you just call Dr. Strange yourself?” she spat. “Or just snap me in two already. We both know that you can do it.”

  
He flinched as if she slapped him and then she did, listening as the loud crack reverberated around her cell. If she was honest, this was her favorite part of her escapades. She wanted him to hurt as much as he hurt the people around him. She wished he would just bleed and die.

  
“Hope…”

  
She turned her back on him. Baby Guy was going to die and it was all her fault. She felt her eyes sting and her throat burn. She swallowed her anger down and turned her back on Superman.

  
“Just get out.”

  
“Hope, I’m trying to protect you.”

  
She yanked off one the metal bars from the bed and threw it at him over her shoulder.

She heard the metal bounced off of him and clatter loudly on the floor, his eyes never leaving her back. “Hope, please. Just let me-”

“GET OUT!!” she screamed loud enough that the Cadmi heard through her closed door. It startled them and one of the taller older ones, C-122, opened the door and looked in.

“Everything… right?” he asked, his bright blue eyes blinking warily at Superman. The red-caped enforcer of the Luthoran Empire straightened his back, his eyes filled with grief.

  
“Yes, I was just leaving. Please make sure she does not leave her… cell until morning like the others.”

  
The door closed behind him with a hiss. Hope tore apart her bed’s metal frame and threw the bits against the door denting it beyond the point of being able to be opened.

She was almost completely worn out when she felt a pinch in her boot. Annoyed that some of the remains of her bed made it into her boot, she leaned down and plucked out a clear round cylinder. She confirmed the label’s contents before passing out on the floor, the exertions of the night finally taking their toll on her body.


	2. The Lectric Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Justice War, the world crumbles into chaos. Death and terror are rampant and children become the front line for a battle not yet finished. Through all the loss and tragedy one thing remains very clear, not everything is as it seems.

**Hope**

**Chapter 2: The Lectric Box**

_After the Justice War, the world crumbles into chaos. Death and terror are rampant and children become the front line for a battle not yet finished. Through all the loss and tragedy one thing remains very clear, not everything is as it seems._

* * *

 

Every morning the pipes would give off a high pitched reverberating noise of protest that would be followed by a semi-deafening siren. The siren was a reminder to the guards and those trapped in their cells that the doors were opening for the day. Hope sat up groggily on the floor, wiping a bit of drool from her face, the siren hadn’t even gone off yet. That was good. She fell asleep on the floor like she always did. Superman had brought her a mattress once but she didn’t want it and had dragged it all the way to Remy’s. 

She didn’t want anything from the man. Well, aside from his own painful and slow demise, that is. He used to ask her if she needed anything before dragging her back to her cell. After several weeks of creative and detailed descriptions of his death, he stopped asking. Hope wondered how long it would take him to give up on her and just let Dr. Strange take her. 

Two years ago, Dr. Strange came around the cells one night. He was particularly interested in her and was planning on sneaking her out when he got a call from Lex Luthor himself. 

Apparently, when the Superman had someone under his protection they were off limits from even Dr. Strange. The doctor had been furious and stormed out of the cell block leaving the small group of metas he had collected behind. The restrictions on his  _ candidates  _ were heightened and he was not allowed access to the meta cells after that. It was one of the reasons everyone rushed back to be inside before dark. If they were caught out after dark they went straight to a giddy Dr. Strange and his scalpel.

There hadn’t been anyone taken in the last several months. She wouldn’t be surprised if someone went missing on their way home from the factories. She had been ambushed several times on her way into her cell but everyone learned pretty quickly not to mess with her. She may look small because she barely ate and had no idea what real sunlight looked like but she was the most dangerous being that lived in the underground and the guards knew it.

Standing up properly, she checked that Guy’s medicine was in her pocket before she began to pull the bits of metal lodged into the wall out and dropped them on the floor loudly behind her. The sunrise siren would go off soon and she needed to make her way to Remy. Guy had been so weak yesterday.

The metal fell away and her door finally became visible. C-333 was standing outside shaking his head. “Ah… gain?”   
“Yeah, sorry Threes. His royal Capedness pissed me off.” Threes raised an eyebrow and she smiled at him. “I’ll clean it up tonight. I promise.”

He waved her off, each movement paining him, as the loud wail of the morning siren went off throughout the Underground. “Go. I cl...clean.”

Her door opened and she kissed his cheek before taking off down the hallway before anyone else could get in her way. Her barcode was scanned by C-561 and she ran towards the Deads.

 

The Deads was the area where, if you wandered, you ended up dead. The naming of things wasn’t overly creative in the Underground either. Latching onto a service ladder, she swung herself up above the moving pedestrians and small homes. Once she reached the tallest running along the walls, she vaulted herself up onto the overhead piping, swinging herself overhead and looking down at the busy early morning traffic. Not that anyone had anywhere to go, but there were plenty of people to steal from in the morning. You know, steal from the people who stole at night and didn’t get caught kind of thing. 

She could hear shouting and saw a family of three, newcomers by the looks of it dead on the floor near the Trader’s market. She swung by until she reached a large lead electrical door. When the Undergrown train was still running, before the Justice War, it had been the electrical room for the entire line. Now it was cleaned out and empty of any wiring or anything ‘vagrants’ could use as protection or something to trade for food. Because of the open wiring boxes and the random floods in the Underground, it also was empty when Hope and Remy originally found it. They called their small haven the “Lectric Box.”

The first time Hope revealed her powers to Remy was during a flood when their new home lit up like what she assumed the sun looked like. She grabbed him and tossed him onto the overhead piping while she swam underwater and closed each conduit circuit. It hurt like hell and he held her while she slept for a full week after, that had been before she was confined to a cell every night. 

Remy took care of her while she was sick and the two became closer. She hoped he hadn’t stayed up all night worrying. She was tired enough as it was and when they were both tired it left the kids vulnerable. Rapping her knuckles on the door, she knocked their secret code. Usually, she had to wait several minutes for someone to open the door and by the time they did, it was usually one of the kids who were half asleep. She had barely finished the first set of their seven set code when the door flew open and Remy yanked her in, slamming it shut behind her. 

His strong arms went around her and she was immediately comforted by his lithe but rugged form. His thin body had always been a comfort to her. Large men with large muscles made her weary and put her brain on constant alert. With Remy, she just… was.

“I was so worried about you and then there were rumors of a fight in the-”

“Remy-”

“I told you not to go. Every time you go, I get so worried. What if this is the time you don’t come back?”

“Remy-”

“I can’t lose you, Hope. I wouldn’t be able to live without you.” Realizing that he was spiraling into a meltdown Hope closed her eyes and pressed her lips against hers. She could taste salt and copper on his tongue and she knew that he must have been biting his lip in fear, last night. She hated worrying him but sometimes it was necessary. Remy would rather risk his own life than hers, he would rather carefully plan things out and obsess over the decision like it was their last one. Remy was cautious and patient, like their kiss. It started off soft and nimble, and with a resigned sigh, he leaned into her. It was all Remy. Quiet, patient, and slow. He was the only bit of calm in her life. She needed him like she needed air to breathe. 

 

Hope was not calm or patient or slow. She was rough and dangerous. She was brash, reckless, and too fast for most people to see without mechanical enhancements. She shoved at Remy’s black leather jacket and he responded in kind. He shoved her against the closed door, her back slamming against the metal denting it. His lips were bruising on hers as their kiss broke free and turned wild. Hiking her legs up around his waist, she rocked against him and he held her there firmly. Just for a moment against the door, they lost themselves in each other.  

She rubbed herself on him and he cursed. Things would have gone further had a small voice not disturbed their near coupling. “Remy? Guy’s coughing and he won’t stop.”

Her legs detached immediately from his belt buckle where they had been resting. His fingers, that had been threaded in her hair pulled back as if burned. He sprang back and ran past little Jay. She ruffled the sandy boy's hair and chased after her own brunette. They hurried into the seclusion room. It was a room they isolated for the sick so that they could keep everyone else healthy and the ill-contained. 

Guy was paler than he was the day before. The only color on him was the red aggravation on his cheeks and his nose. His eyes were grey and sunken and his hair matted with sweat. She whipped out the cylinder and handed it to Remy. 

She knelt down next to Guy and sang him a song that she often sang to the small children. She wasn’t sure where the tune came from but it was the only song she knew and the children were always comforted by it. Guy sniffled and she held his cold shivering fingers. Remy walked silently to his other arm and administered the shot. The boy wailed for several minutes while she rocked him back and forth in her arms tenderly. Every time one of the kids got sick, she wished she could take their pain and their hurt for them. Her heart hurt when her little ones suffered, she knew Remy’s did too.  

Her chosen partner in life stood over her watching her, his deep brown eyes guarded and closed off of emotion. She continued rocking Guy until he was in a deep sleep, trying to ignore her concern. Bundling him tightly, she put him in his bed again. Remy offered her a hand up off of the floor and she took it gratefully.

“I’ll check on him in an hour,” Remy promised. They crept out of the room quietly, not wanting to wake the sleeping baby. She closed the door behind her and almost ran into Remy who was standing still in front of her. He towered over her average frame, his eyes filled with fear. Sliding her arms his neck, she kissed him. 

“What is it?” she whispered. His outburst earlier was out of character for him and at first, she was worried he wasn’t getting sleep.  She was starting to worry it was something much worse, though.

Remy laced his fingers around her waist and pulled her close. “There are whispers that there’s going to be an outbreak in Apocalypse.” 

Hope shivered in fear. Apocalypse was a prison from the upper world meant to hold the worst of criminals. It was the deepest fear of everyone in the Underground of an escapee. The last time someone had escaped he used ice to kill half of the Deads. The idea of a mass breakout was terrifying and was more than justification for Remy’s break.

She ran her fingers through his hair while hugging him close, “Remy. It’s probably just rumors meant to scare people into behaving. You heard what happened by the music factory last week. They killed fourteen guards and they still haven’t found out who did it.”

Remy leaned into her embrace kissing her forehead, “It was one of the gangs from Southend. Retaliation because Doctor Strange took one of their kids last year.”

“Let’s hope  _ he _ doesn’t find out or we’ll all have to pay.”

“I doubt Luthor would allow him to just run unchecked down here. Not with-” she hissed at him. She hated talking about Superman and while she wasn’t sure he knew why he usually avoided the topic. “Hope, all I’m asking is for you to be careful.”

Whatever else he was going to say was disrupted when she heard Zan ask Raya if there was any food today. Zan was an orphan from above. His father had been a scientist and his mother a doctor. According to Zan, they were helping smuggle people out of the Luthoran Empire and into the Republic of America. She was skeptical of his story mostly because it was supposed to be impossible.

The good thing was that even though Zan, or Zander as he was known on the surface, was thirteen he knew how to plant and was more than happy to teach the people that took him in. They had started growing things in the Lectric Box but nothing sprouted yet. Zander said it could take several weeks before they see any sprouts. So far, they had planted potatoes and a variety of other grains that he assured them would grow even in the dark and harsh weather. 

Remy was happy as he didn’t want her stealing from the Supply Compound. If Zander’s plants worked she would give it up in a heartbeat but until then she had eleven small mouths to feed.

She turned away from Remy and held her arms out to small raven-haired Raya. She was short and lost an arm due to infection but she would cut your throat out if you tried to hurt her. If she was honest, Raya reminded her of Remy when they were younger and therefore was her automatic favorite. 

Raya jumped into her arms, hugged her tightly. “Remy was so scared all night, he walked around and around and around until you knocked!”

Hope held Raya close to her chest like she was food or medicine, something precious. “Really? He said he was going to be calm.”

Raya giggled. “He wasn’t,” she whispered.

She tickled the nine-year-old before walking towards the now upturned beds, that doubled as an eating and playing table. Well, it was technically a table that she had stolen from the furniture factory before it closed. They had put enough rags on the underside that it was used as a bed more than a table. 

The table was crowded around by the small kids, all waiting for her arrival. Most of them were named either by her or Remy or they gave themselves names on the streets.

Their second to youngest kids in the Lectric Box rushed to give her hugs. They were four-year-old twins that she found in a gutter on her way back from stealing food. They were no more than a week old at the time and with the help of C-122 she smuggled them into the Meta cellblock until she was able to bring them back to Remy the next morning. 

A year after she found the twins, Remy found Lefty during his short occupation as a factory worker. Remy was attacked every day on the way home for his ticket and it wasn’t worth the broken bones and near death incidents when Hope could steal more in a half hour more than he could earn in ten half days. They agreed the terror of him working at the factory was worth it, only because they had found Lefty.

Lefty was bald, missing all of his limbs on his left side, and his left eye. They weren’t certain but he looked like a pregnant woman that Dr. Strange took from her meta cell to his lab. How Lefty escaped the lab and ended up on Remy’s climb home was a mystery but they all knew his mother was dead. Her cell already cycled three different people living in it. Hope was concerned that Lefty was a meta so he was never allowed to leave the Lectric Box. He was four and couldn’t walk on his own so it wasn’t a problem yet, but she imagined that it would be soon. 

 

Since Lefty had one of everything he had a hard time doing regular things that they all took for granted. Crim, who was barely older than Lefty himself helped him with everything. The two were rarely apart and often Remy referred to them as the second set of twins in the Lectric Box. Crim was sitting with a distraught looking Lefty, she smiled and pointed up at Hope as she walked into the room. Lefty smiled instantly his worries gone. Crim helped him stand up and the two pushed over the twins so that they could hug her. 

Polky was talking about gardening with Zan at the doorways entrance. He was a spitfire if there ever was one and Remy often commented that Polky reminded him of Hope. They even had matching brown hair. She smiled at Polky and their hands met in their air with their secret handshake. At seven he was too old to be giving hugs but he insisted on a secret handshake with both Hope and Remy. It was hard when the kids got older and needed them less. She was happy that they were independent and could take of themselves but sometimes she watched them foraging or doing something so mature it brought her to tears. Remy was always right by her side, a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Raya hopped off of her and hurried over to her brother Feets. The two were fighting over a toy that Feets had fashioned from an old spoon he found lying around. Raya may be a year old than Feets but Feets usually won their arguments. It wasn’t because Raya was soft it was because Feets was bigger than her and overpowered her easily. 

Remy worried constantly about him leaving the Lectric Box too early because of his size. The two had agreed that once a child was old enough and ready to live on their own they could leave the safety of the Lectric Box, of course, Smiles was the exception to this rule.

Smiles was abandoned by his parents in aboveground because he was born with a simple mind. Most children like Smiles ended up in the Chopper but Sleven found him while he and Remy were out trying to scavenge more blankets for warmth during a particularly bitter winter. 

They brought him back to the Lectric Box and Sleven became his unofficial caretaker. On more than one occasion, Remy and Hope had to sit Sleven down and convince him that they weren’t going to kick Smiles out just because he was different and that Sleven needed to eat his food and not give it all to Smiles. Smiles adored Sleven and often made him little figurines out of mud to show his love.

The two were happily ignoring the fighting siblings next to them and playing a game that involved chasing their fingers around each other's palms. She placed a kiss on each of their heads before passing out a half a piece of bread to each of the kids and a ration of water each. 

Remy slid behind her and sat down. She leaned back into his embrace and ate while leaning back into his chest, happily catching the crumbs he dropped from above her. 

She looked around her and smiled at her kids’ full bellies and laughter at a silly joke that Smiles made. She looked up and her bright eyes met Remy’s, they had to enjoy the small happy moments because one never knew when they were going to be taken away. 


End file.
